The invention relates to mobile communication networks and particularly to purchasing chargeable services or products via them.
Solutions are presently known in which a mobile station is used to pay for different services and products, such as car wash or soft drinks purchased from slot machines. These types of solutions are likely to become common in the future.
It is previously known to prevent a subscriber from using certain types of services. This means that a given subscriber line is not permitted long distance calls or calls to given service numbers, for example. It is also previously known to limit the use of a mobile subscription by defining a maximum allowed upper limit for a billing period. Prepaid type of billing also provides opportunities for customizing and limiting the use of mobile subscriptions.
The problem in the above arrangements is the inability to control the use of the different services so as to allow the use of different types of services or products up to a defined limit depending on the type of product or service. Parents, for example, may want to control their children""s mobile telephone bills by limiting the use of some services by certain conditions, while other services are entirely allowed or entirely inhibited. An employer may also wish to limit the purchases of different product or service types in company mobile telephones used by employees.
The object of the invention is thus to provide a method and an apparatus for implementing the method so as to solve the above problems. The object of the invention is achieved by a method and system that are characterized by what is stated in the independent claims. The preferred embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the dependent claims.
The invention is based on defining groups of products and services to be purchased via a mobile communication network, and defining group-specific limits of use. When a subscriber selects a product or service for purchase, a check is made to see if the limit of the corresponding service or product group allows said purchase. A group may comprise one or more services and/or products, and a service or product may belong to one or more groups.
The advantage of the method and system of the invention is the ability to control the purchases of different services or products via a mobile communication network more accurately than previously. This means that the purchases of services and products do not have to be entirely allowed or inhibited; instead, group-specific limits are used. This advantage is particularly emphasized when the user of a subscriber line is not the owner of the line or the payer of the bills.